Thank men for women’s lib

Let’s get this straight. I’m a feminist. That’s the way I was brought up. My mum was a passionate women’s libber and I always agreed with my mum — even when she was wrong — but she was right on that one. The struggle to free one sex has liberated both. The human species is now freer, more dynamic and more fulfilled than ever.

But here’s the oddity. When I read histories of the women’s movement I rarely find any hint that men were involved at all. Men are either sidelined completely or portrayed as a bunch of sexist wreckers who strove to hold women back at every turn.

Quite untrue, of course. But a fascinating prejudice. What’s even more fascinating is to discover why it still goes unchallenged. First, a few facts. Progressive men were at the forefront of the struggle for women’s liberation. And they didn’t just support the movement; at crucial moments, they led it.

The suffragettes were part of a wider crusade against injustice in all its forms. Its brand name was socialism and its leaders were predominantly male. Marx and Engels campaigned for equality between the classes. And between the sexes. Bernard Shaw’s plays satirised the shameful position of women in Edwardian society as ornamental chattels and drawing-room jewellery boxes. The first Labour MP, Keir Hardie, along with influential thinkers like H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, Sidney Webb, John Maynard Keynes and others, argued passionately for women’s suffrage. Even that notorious womaniser Lloyd George sided with the feminists when it mattered. As prime minister, he led the all-male parliament that passed the Representation of the People Act in 1918 and gave women the right to vote and to stand as MPs. Like it or not, Lloyd George is the original British feminist. Now, it’s true that these reformers hadn’t always seen the issue in this way.